The Yankees were able to match the visiting Braves at 3-3 through five innings on July 2, 2018, on a day when youth was served. Aaron Judge homered and Gleyber Torres scored twice for the home team, against Johan Camargo and Ronald Acuna, Jr. rbi’s for the visitors. The tie held for six innings, until Acuna homered off David Robertson in the top of the 11th, for a 5-3 Atlanta win. Continue reading →
I thought the “bummer” highlight from 1990 a few paragraphs down would remain the lead-off July 1 item, but the Yankee Captain and gang proved me wrong in 2004. Tony Clark and Jorge Posada home runs propelled Brad Halsey and the Yankees into a 3-0 lead over Pedro Martinez and the Red Sox in a Thursday night classic in Yankee Stadium, but Boston tied it on a two-run Manny Ramirez home run and a David McCarty double that heartbreakingly glanced off Bernie Williams‘s glove in the seventh. Onto bonus play, the Sox loaded the bases with no outs on two singles and a walk against Mariano Rivera in the 11th, but Alex Rodriguez turned a miraculous 5-UA, 5-2 double play that would have been a triple play on a 2-5, but the latter throw retired Ramirez coming from second for the second time on the play, a twist you won’t find in the rule book. A second-and-third, two-out threat against Tanyon Sturtze the following frame was averted when Derek Jeter dove face first into the left-field boxes after snaring Trot Nixon‘s flair into no man’s land. Was it all for naught when Ramirez homered deep to left leading off the top on the 13th? Of course not. After two quick outs, Ruben Sierra, Miguel Cairo, and John Flaherty delivered hits in succession, and the Yanks and their fans celebrated a 5-4 victory in the darnedest game you could ever see. Continue reading →
Having walked off the game the day before in a traditional manner, with two ninth-inning home runs, the Yankees scored a much quieter 2-1 “walk”-off win on June 30, 2016, as two walks around a sac bunt off righty Tony Barnette, followed by a fielder’s choice grounder to first, set it all up, and Chase Headley scored the game winner on Robert Chirinos‘s passed ball. Michael Pineda pitched six strong and, following a frame apiece by Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman got himself a “W” on the miscue. Continue reading →
The Yankees won a game in the way they were assembled to on June 29, 2022, once they had fallen behind visiting Oakland 3-0 in the top of the first on Stephen Piscotty and Elvis Andrus rbi base hits. Retribution was immediate, as Aaron Judge homered for two in the bottom half, and went yard for three in the third in a 5-3 Yankee victory. Continue reading →
You don’t earn a name like the Bronx Bombers lightly, but putting up numbers like the Yanks did on June 28, 1939, sure helps. The eight home runs they hit in the first game of that day’s doubleheader was a record. When they made it 13 on the day with five more in the second game, that was another, as were the 53 total bases they earned in the two games. Joe DiMaggio, Babe Dahlgren, and Joe Gordon each hit three home runs as the Yankees swept the A’s, 23-2 and 10-0. Continue reading →
I had my worst ever experience in Yankee Stadium on June 27, 2016, when a rain delay declared with one down in the top of the ninth — a 3:56 rain delay! — halted what should have been a hard-fought 6-5 Yankee win over the visiting Rangers. A Mark Teixeira seventh-inning home run gave the Yanks a 6-4 lead, and Rougned Odor halved the Yankee edge with a blast off Andrew Miller in the eighth. With a hard rain having fallen for innings, Aroldis Chapman couldn’t even stand on the soaked mound in the ninth, much less push off from it. Each team had batted for eight innings, with the visitors having scored last; the field was unplayable, with the rain expected to continue for hours — it did not disappoint. It should have been called right then, an eight-inning, rain-shortened 6-5 Yankee win. Kirby Yates had a disastrous ninth inning four hours later, twice hitting batters with pitches when it seemed he might escape early trouble. Texas scored four, and had themselves a 9-6, eight-hour win, played before 25 or 30 rain-drenched fans. That home plate ump John Tumpane still has his job in 2017 baffles and infuriates me. Continue reading →
Not only did the Yanks fashion a win over the visiting Astros on June 26, 2022, they did so in the same fashion they earned their only other ’22 victory: a walkoff. Jose Altuve‘s lead off homer in the first and a two-run single from Mauricio Dubon had the visitors up until Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu bombs tied matters. Then Giancarlo homered for three in the bottom of the 10th for the 6-3 win. Continue reading →
Eighth-inning rbi’s from Harrison Bader and Giancarlo Stanton forged the three-run rally that carried the Bombers to a 5-3 win over Texas, in a game the Yanks trailed 3-0 in the second inning. DJ LeMahieu‘s two-run double in the bottom of the second represented the only early Yankee scoring. Continue reading →
It was a little disconcerting, as the Yanks held Mickey Mantle Triple Crown Night on Friday, June 24, 2016, a gorgeous night in the Bronx, because ex-Yank Eduardo Nunez promptly put the visiting Twins up 2-0 with a double in the top of the third. But Masahiro Tanaka righted the ship, and the home team prevailed 5-3, with five different pinstripers scoring, and five knocking in a run apiece as well. The only players to notch one of each were Carlos Beltran and Aaron Hicks, the latter by stroking the game’s lone home run. Continue reading →
The June 23 game in the Stadium was that rarest of 2022 happenings, a walkoff home victory over the despised Houston Astros. It was Pride Night in the Bronx, and I’m Coming Out by Diana Ross was the Eighties in the Eighth musical highlight. The Yankees survived the three-run home run James Taillon surrendered to Alex Bregman in the first (Giancarlo Stanton equalled it in the boittom half), but not the Yordan Alvarez shot plating three in the third. Almost unbelievably, Aaron Hicks tied it — you guessed it — with a three-runner of his own with no outs in the bottom of the ninth, and two outs later, Aaron Judge delivered the game winner with an rbi single, 7-6 Yankees. Continue reading →
